Letter to the Editor: Parent did not fund color guard

It has come to my attention that the Tornado Times has recently produced and distributed the October 2016 paper (Vol. 8, No. 1). Inside the paper, there is an article regarding the school’s failed color guard with my family’s name and FALSE information. My father, William (Bill) Dowd, DID NOT provide the school’s color guard program with $25,000. This is completely absurd and untrue. Ms. Odio was not the band director at Pompano Beach High School when my sister attended and participated in the color guard, so Ms. Odio would NOT have any information regarding my father and/or a donation made.

My father would like to include this statement: “When I first saw this article, my initial reaction was shock as I never donated that amount of money. The article made it seem like no one paid their fees and that couldn’t be further from the truth. To be perfectly clear, during the six years I volunteered with the program, 90 percent of the members paid their fees of up to $1,200.00 per school year. The students who did not pay their fees were not allowed to be part of the program the follow year, with some exceptions.

“What I did give a lot of was time, the band director cannot do it alone and parents volunteering is one of the most important components to successful programs. I am not saying that everyone has to be as involved as I was, that would be unrealistic and not everyone is in a position to do that. It takes a lot of help to keep a band & color guard program going, I can tell you that while it was a lot of work it was also a lot of fun and my relationship with my daughters was strengthened by my involvement.”